Transcript No Slide Title

Professional Development for Tutors and Mentors
supporting Work-based Learners
Frank Lyons
Director of Foundation Direct
National Teaching Fellow
University of Portsmouth
T&LS Staff, Victoria University, August 10 2006
Aims of workshop
• To develop understanding of Learning
Contract design and use
• To experience work-based learning
• To develop strategies for supporting teaching
staff who are embedding WBL in their
curriculum.
But what are your aims?
The critical differences:
Work-based Learning
Content &
knowledge
Curriculum
Outcomes
and output
Students role
Student type
Staffing
Conventional Learning
The critical differences:
Work-based Learning
Conventional Learning
Content &
knowledge
Work professional and
trans-disciplinary
Disciplinary and
professional
Curriculum
Emergent –derived from
work
Pre-determined
Outcomes
and output
Artefacts, professional and
technical practice
Theoretical knowledge and
practice
Students role
Negotiate and manage
Partial management
Student type
Employed and on
Placement
Mostly pre-employment
Staffing
Mentors and academic
advisors
Academics, teachers and
placement supervisors
Draft your Learning Contract
Learning Contracts contain:
• Aims
• Learning Outcomes
• Learning plans (activities, projects, research)
• Timetable and way points
• Resource analysis
• Evidence to prove attainment of Los
• Criteria for assessing learning
• Signatures
Resources: 3 domains of learning
THEORY
PRACTICE
SELF
Forms of Work-based Learning
Learning in work placements and at own place of work:
• Organisational learning: taking orders, following
discipline, time keeping.
• Skills training (including shadowing)
• Projects
• Working with a Mentor
Learning for work:
• Simulations
• Live Briefs
• Conferences
• Action Learning Sets
Resources: 3 domains of learning
THEORY
PRACTICE
SELF
Theories of Work-based Learning
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Competency and capability models (J. Stevenson)
Competency Assessment (R. Winter)
Complexity theory (P. Knight)
Wb Learners identities (D Boud)
Communities of Practice (E. Wenger & J. Lave)
Reflective Practitioner (D. Schon)
Mentoring (D.Clutterbuck)
And ?
Resources: 3 domains of learning
THEORY
PRACTICE
SELF
The Dipstick Exercise
The company has lost its dipstick. The dipstick is
used to measure the oil in the storage tank which is
buried in a location outside the factory. The fuel is
used for office and workshop heating, the
companies drying rooms and for emergency power
generation. This is your work-based project.
What will you do?
What are the learning outcomes?
Assessing work-based
learning outcomes
Work –based learners:
• master lots of information
• use complicated procedures accurately
• apply difficult concepts and theories
• make fresh demands
• apply established knowledge in fresh, often-messy
settings
• radically explore
• transform old knowledge
• synthesise theory, practice and self understanding
Employers want graduates with knowledge; intellect;
willingness to learn; self management skills; communication
skills team working; interpersonal skills (Lee Harvey 1997)
Working in pairs
Professionalism
according to Winter
(1995)
 Learning which is
continuous, critically selfreflective and updating
 A recognition that
professional judgements
are open to question
 Preparedness to read,
research and learn from
others
 Ongoing reflection on
strengths and weaknesses
 Preparedness to be
flexible
 A commitment to ethics,
honesty and openness
 A commitment to act in
the best interest of clients.
What do you think are
the key skills that
associate professionals
need to develop?
How do you think
professionalism should be
manifested by your
students when they
practice?
Try and Agree in your Group
The assessment strategy for Professionalism and Professional
learner elements on Associate Degrees
What assessment
artefacts would you
recommend?
What assessment
processes would
you recommend:
Formative?
Developmental?
What Assessment
criteria would you
recommend?
When should
assessment occur?
Continuous Professional Development for Fd Early Years Tutors
Type
Action
Impact
Consultancy
Work with course designer on WBL
and PDP
Some WBL assessed units
Paper based PD Portfolios
Networking
(18 months on)
Discussion of WBL opportunities and heard of
difficulties with PDP and teaching reflection
Consciousness reinforcing and raising
about limits to Curriculum design
Training
Training on WebCT from University EDU
Some Web CT resources introduced for
distant WB Learners
NTF funded
“Awayday”
offered
Explored WBL, PDP and teaching reflection
using online learning and possibilities of
curriculum re-design
Discussions with HoD and agreement to
pilot change
Research and
WBL
FE tutors mapped WBL potential for achieving
LOs
Curriculum replanning realisation of
potential of the ‘long thin unit’
CETL funded
WBL
PDP unit developed and skills in new learning
blends learning emerging
Online “long thin” Professional
Development Unit
Development
Group
Proposals and test site sent to course team for
review – recognition of group as a WBL
community
Refining the content of the PD Unit, JIT
aspects and WB blend
Training
Online learning for course tutors and CETL staff
Affordances of online learning for WBL
understood  PD review (graphics, E
Portfolio dropped)
WBL thru
dissemination
Tutors present and write about the FD
Deepening understanding
Review
Reflection over dinner
This workshop
Mentor Direct
Review
Workshop
Experience
Evaluate
Learning
Contract
Review
Action Plan
CPD
Strategy
Actions
for
self